The Meaning of Conservatism

Index

Preface to the Third Edition

The original version of this book was written twenty years ago, during the last months of a Labour administration. It was a young man’s book, a response to events that are now all but forgotten. I had witnessed the student revolution in Paris, had lived through its effects in the universities where I studied and taught, and had rebelled against the prevailing ethos of rebellion. When the request came to write a book on conservatism, it was at a time when the Conservative Party was preparing to fight an election as the champion of freedom. Uppermost in my mind was the freedom that had been displayed on the barricades in Paris. The experience had convinced me, first that I was a conservative, and secondly that conservatism is not about freedom, but about authority, and that in any case freedom divorced from authority is of no use to anyone – not even to the one who possesses it. At the time my thoughts sounded harsh and uncompromising. In reworking the text from a new perspective, I have tried to retain the sense of what I wrote, while moderating the language.

My purpose was to express the root ideas of a conservative ideology, not because I hoped to convince anyone, but because it seemed to me that the conservative outlook was as much misunderstood by those who sought to defend it, as by those who imagined that it had been finally consigned to the ‘dust-heap of history’. I sought to distinguish conservatism from economic liberalism and also to counter the Conservative Party’s emphasis on free markets and economic growth. Conservatism, as I describe it, involves the attempt to perpetuate a social organism, through times of unprecedented change. Organisms can be cured by growth; but they can also be killed by it. And that, briefly, is what we are now witnessing, not in England only, but throughout the Western hemisphere.

A defender of the conservative position is always assumed to bear the onus of proof. Twenty years ago the argument of this book was greeted with derision by its socialist and liberal readers. In truth, however, it is not conservatives who bear the onus, since they defend the virtues of what is actual, and may, in the last analysis, point to what they mean. It is nevertheless necessary to emphasize that this work is an exercise in doctrine; it attempts not to prove a political vision, but to express it. The aim is to find the concepts and beliefs with which to articulate in modern terms an outlook that is too sober and serious to be merely modern.

Since the book was written, momentous events have changed the language of public debate. There occurred in Poland the first genuine working-class revolution in history. It was a revolution against socialism, against the planned economy, against atheism, propaganda and party government; a revolution in favour of patriotism, of a redeemed tradition and a rediscovered history, in favour of private property, autonomous institutions, religious principle, judicial independence and a rule of law. In short, it was a movement in the direction recommended at the time by conservatives.

There was the war in the South Atlantic, fought for no other reason than traditional allegiance, which nevertheless proved stronger than all the pettifogging hesitancies of diplomacy.

There was the collapse of the Soviet Empire, and the near-universal acknowledgement not merely that communism is unsustainable, but that it could be imposed only by unacceptable force.

The Polish experience showed more vividly than any argument, just how far every conceivable question of history and politics has been begged in favour of the socialist perspective; the Falklands war showed the reality, durability and efficacy of patriotism as the foundation of political unity; the collapse of communism brought with it a massive shift of attitude on the left. Instead of attacking global capitalism, the Labour Party became its most devoted defender, promoting the ‘global’ economy against the last vestiges of national resistance, and sneering at the reactionaries and ‘Little Englanders’ who were prepared to sacrifice a promise of yet more economic growth for the proven benefits of national sovereignty, local traditions and the common law.

Perhaps, in the wake of such events, this book might be read more sympathetically. Nevertheless, I have added a philosophical appendix, in which I try to show that there really is a philosophical basis for the doctrine that I offer, and that the liberal attempt to shift the onus of proof permanently on to the conservative cannot succeed. As I argue, the ultimate philosophical conflict between conservatism and liberalism resides in a clash between the point of view of the observer, and that of the agent. The substance of this book will be better understood, when it is seen that it is expressed, not from the first-person, but from the third-person perspective – the perspective of the anthropologist, concerned for the welfare of a tribe (albeit a tribe which is also his own).

In the body of the text I dealt seriously with socialist ideas, and in particular with Marxism. It should be remembered that at the time – the late Seventies – socialist and Marxist ideas were orthodoxy in our universities, and indeed that it was almost unheard of for anyone openly to dissent from them. My own college – Birkbeck College in the University of London – contained, to my knowledge, two conservatives: myself, and Nunzia (Annunziata), the Neopolitan lady who served behind the counter in the Senior Common Room, and who showed her contempt for the fellow travellers who queued there by plastering her patch of wall with photographs of the Pope. Nunzia was the only person I could really talk to in the university, and it is not surprising, therefore, if this book – my first attempt to write about politics – did not conform to the accepted standards of academic politeness.

In particular, I was deliberately disrespectful towards the ideas of human rights and democracy. My left-wing colleagues were, at the time, paying elaborate lip-service to these ideas (while offering their covert or even overt support to regimes, such as that of the Soviet Union, which defied them). It would have been wiser to join in this lip-service, which operated as a kind of password to the exclusive arena of political debate. I therefore take the opportunity to suggest the true grounds of the scepticism that is expressed in the following pages.

The ideas of ‘natural rights’ and ‘natural justice’ are by no means the invention of liberal political theory. As I argue in Chapter 4, they arise naturally, out of the day-to-day commerce of rational beings, and any action which is thought to violate a law of justice costs the agent the trust and friendship of his victim. Similarly, a state whose citizens perceive its actions as unjust, sacrifices their allegiance. Hence the idea contains a vital political admonition. But what, in reality, does this admonition amount to? That people are disposed to believe in the existence of natural rights is, of course, an all-important political fact. But that there are natural rights, existing objectively and independently of any positive law which might otherwise be held to have created them, is a disputed thesis of philosophy. It cannot be the task of policy to settle an undecided philosophical question. Moreover, conceived in isolation, without reference to some legal tradition, the concept of a natural right is singularly indeterminate, generating now this, now that, set of intuitions about the ‘inalienable’ moral property of the human individual. Those philosophers (such as Aquinas, Grotius and Locke) who have attempted to build ideas of legitimacy upon a foundation of natural law have disagreed over almost every detail of the resulting political structure. And the latest attempts at the enterprise – those of Robert Nozick and John Rawls – show how far philosophers remain in disagreement, both as to the content of our ‘natural rights’, and as to the nature of the political system that might secure them. (A reason for this is given in the appendix.) Finally, the European Court of Human Rights issues such a string of contradictory and divisive judgements, that the credibility of this way of arguing ought by now to be in serious doubt.

More importantly, however, we must remind ourselves that a right becomes political reality only with the power that is able to enforce it. Rights without powers are political fictions. Natural rights could only be enforced by the power of civil jurisdiction, which in turn exists in order to uphold the ‘positive rights’ of a given system of law. The all-important political task is therefore to erect such a legal system, and to guarantee that the state will yield to it in any conflict. It is only on the assumption that we can succeed at this task that it makes sense to constrain our politics in obedience to natural law. The essential component of such a conservative legal system is judicial independence. A legal system founded in judicial precedent, operated by judges who are truly independent of all interested parties, will have a natural tendency to gravitate towards the ‘natural rights’ which ordinary people recognize. The true enemy of natural law, I argue, is not the judge, but the politician, and the greatest threat to just dealings between people is the attempt to remake society from above, in conformity with a conception of ‘social justice’.

The idea of natural law is an instrument in the all-important battle to divide the private from the public – to mark out a sphere of individual existence, into which the state cannot intrude. Democracy also has been valued as an instrument in that battle, and to the extent that it has been effective, we must favour it. However, democracy is as contested an idea as natural justice, and in assessing our commitment to it, we should always bear in mind that it is not the business of policy to answer the questions of the philosopher – to resolve, for example, the paradoxes of collective choice, or to settle on some criterion of ‘genuine democracy’ that would meet the exacting requirements of a philosophical theory. Moreover, in advocating a far-ranging principle of government, such as democracy, we should be clear what we hope to achieve. It may be that we esteem democracy not as an end in itself, but as a means to other things which could in principle be achieved without it.

There are three features of conservative government that are rightly valued by the advocates of democracy: constitution, representation and legal opposition. But it is a mistake to think that democratic election is the only means to achieving these conditions, or that the democratization of every institution will always favour them. The beneficial effects of democratic election depend upon the maintenance of institutions with strong hierarchical components, and the corrosive effect of democratization threatens not only these institutions but also the democratic procedure which they sustain. We see this now, in the United Kingdom, as one by one the old constraints on democratically elected politicians are removed, and nothing stands between the Prime Minister and his latest whim except a cabinet appointed and dismissed by himself.

More importantly, we should not let our obsession with democracy blind us to its value. We seek government limited by constitution. We seek representation of the subject in the highest forum of debate. We seek legal opposition, and an active public opinion that will serve as a brake upon power. To the extent that democratic election helps to produce those benefits, we must support it. But we must also balance the benefit of democracy against its cost. It should not be thought that the cost of a system which makes an idol of ignorance and a prophet of the crowd is small.

I have made substantial alterations for this third edition; but I have not tried to indicate the various points at which I no longer agree with the argument. Nor have I removed the extended discussion in Chapters 5 and 6 of the ideas which, when the book was first written, were of such compelling intellectual importance. The text can at least claim this merit, that it does not waste words; and if I have wasted a few in this preface, it is so that the reader will not have to supply them later.

Preface to the First Edition

I have tried to present clearly and simply the fundamental conceptions which I believe to underlie the conservative view in politics and in the course of doing so to show the possibility of subscribing to them. This is not a work of philosophy, but of dogmatics (to use the theological term): it attempts to describe and defend a system of beliefs, but a system which, being directly expressed in action, assumes rather than provides the answers to philosophical questions. Nevertheless, I have drawn on the work of political philosophers, such as Hegel, Marx and Oakeshott, often without directly referring to them, trying always to use a language of my own.

I am grateful to the Rockefeller Foundation for the invitation to the Villa Serbelloni on Lake Como, where the first draft of this essay was begun, and to the friends who encouraged me while writing it. I have benefited from discussions with many people, and in particular from conversations over several years with John Casey and Maurice Cowling. A version of the text was read by William Waldegrave and Ted Honderich, and I was greatly assisted by their criticism. Many conservatives will find themselves in disagreement with what I say. Nevertheless, it satisfies the first requirement of all conservative thought: it is not original, nor does it try to be.

He that goeth about to persuade a multitude, that they are not so well governed as they ought to be, shall never want attentive and favourable hearers, because they know the manifold defects whereunto every kind of regiment is subject, but the secret lets and difficulties, which in public proceedings are innumerable and inevitable, they have not ordinarily the judgment to consider. And because such as openly reprove supposed disorders of state are taken for principal friends to the common benefit of all, and for men that carry singular freedom of mind, under this fair and plausible colour whatsoever they utter passeth for good and current. That which wanteth in the weight of their speech, is supplied by the aptness of men’s minds to accept and believe it. Whereas on the other side, if we maintain things that are established, we have not only to strive with a number of heavy prejudices deeply rooted in the hearts of men, who think that herein we serve the time . . . but also to bear such exceptions as minds so averted beforehand usually take against that which they are loth should be poured into them.

Hooker, Of the Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity, Book 1, Chapter i

There are so many plans, and so many schemes, and so many reasons why there should be neither plans nor schemes.

Disraeli, to Lady Bradford

Introduction: Philosophy, Policy and Doctrine

This is a work of dogmatics: it is an attempt to outline a system of belief, without pausing to argue the abstract questions to which that system provides no answer. The dogmatics of conservatism must be distinguished both from the philosophy upon which it rests, and from the policies which spring from it. The reality of politics is action, but action derives, however covertly, from thought, and consistent action demands consistent thought. Because there is no universal conservative policy, the illusion has arisen that there is no conservative thought, no set of beliefs or principles, no general vision of society, which motivates conservatives to act. Their action is mere reaction, their policy procrastination, their belief nostalgia.

I shall argue that the conservative attitude, and the doctrine that sustains it, are systematic and reasonable. Conservatism may rarely announce itself in maxims, formulae or aims. Its essence is inarticulate, and its expression, when compelled, sceptical. But it is capable of expression, and in times of crisis, forced either by political necessity, or by the clamour for doctrine, conservatism does its best, though not always with any confidence that the words it finds will match the instinct that required them. This lack of confidence stems not from diffidence or dismay, but from an awareness of the complexity of human things, and from an attachment to values which cannot be understood with the abstract clarity of utopian theory.¹

It has been common for intellectuals in our time to believe that the conservative position is no longer ‘available’. The twentieth century is memorable for nothing so much as its violence, and the attempt to understand this violence has brought with it the rise of political ideology. As the ignorant armies clashed in the night of Europe, the rumour spread that there were ‘causes’ for which they fought – causes such as ‘equality’, ‘freedom’ and ‘social justice’. But no report was returned of a conservative banner and the intellectuals drew their conclusion: there is no conservative cause, and therefore no conservative dogma.

Post-war Europe was created by conscripts, for whom a creed without a cause suggests no coherent activity. But a new generation, for whom the spirit of war is not the normal one, can again be attracted by the vision of the human condition in its full complexity, unsimplified by theory, or by overmastering ideals. This generation preserves the history of something greater, something for which it has begun to search. But without doctrine – in the sense of reasoned belief – it too must lose itself in the transient play of policy. The European mind seeks for a deep description of its politics, a description which reflects its real predicament, but which also remains uncontaminated by the day-to-day. Socialists and liberals have contended for this mind, each claiming to provide the system of principles with which to pass from policy to doctrine and from doctrine back to policy. Conservatives, who see value in prejudice and danger in abstract thought, have extemporized, expressing their beliefs in vague and conciliatory language. However, neither the socialist nor the liberal can be appeased. Their bigotry (and there is no greater bigotry, I shall suggest, than the bigotry of liberalism) permits no conciliation, while their statements seem clear, definite, founded in system. Until conservatives lay hold again of the principles which motivate them, they will find themselves outwitted by those who lay claim to a conviction which they may not always feel but are always ready to express. Without doctrine conservatism will lose its intellectual appeal; and (however reluctant conservatives may be to believe it), it is by intellectuals that modern politics is made.

But the alternatives to conservatism, I shall argue, are under-described. The apparent clarity of socialist and liberal thought is illusory, and their obscurity is the deeper for the ease with which it can be concealed within a gospel. By contrast, the conservative attitude is as appropriate and reasonable for the modern mind as it ever was, and, once understood, will be rejected only by those who seek in everything for an overriding purpose or a systematic plan. Such people will be distressed, not only by the conservative viewpoint, but also by the course of modern history, as it overwhelms each successive system in the flood of novelty.

Since my concern is with doctrine, I shall not consider the major issues of policy which any government must face. Nevertheless, I shall make extensive use of examples, since doctrine is useless if it does not translate immediately into practice. In addition I shall produce abstract arguments, often of a philosophical kind. But it must be remembered that argument is not the favourite pursuit of conservatives. Like all political beings, conservatives are for certain things: they are for them, not because they have arguments in their favour, but because they know them, live with them, and find their identity threatened (often they know not how) by the attempt to interfere with their operation. Their characteristic and most dangerous opponent is not the radical, who stands squarely against them, armed with myths and prejudices that match their own, but rather the reformer, who, acting always in a spirit of improvement, finds reason to change whatever he cannot find better reason to retain. It is from this spirit of improvement, the legacy of Victorian liberalism and social Darwinism, that modern socialists and modern liberals continue to derive their moral inspiration.

1

The Conservative Attitude

Conservatism is a stance that may be defined without identifying it with the policies of any party. Indeed, it may be a stance that appeals to a person for whom the whole idea of party is distasteful. In one of the first political manifestos of the English Conservative Party, appeal was explicitly made to ‘that great and intelligent class of society . . . which is far less interested in the contentions of party, than in the maintenance of order and the cause of good government’ (Peel, The Tamworth Manifesto, 1834). Paradoxical though it may seem, it was from this aversion to factional politics that the Conservative Party grew. But it was an aversion rapidly overcome by another: that towards the chronic reform which only an organized party can successfully counter.²

In England, therefore, conservatism has sought expression through the activity (or, just as often, through the strategic inactivity) of a particular party, a party dedicated to maintaining the structure and institutions of a society threatened by mercantile enthusiasm and social unrest. In recent years, the Conservative Party has often seemed to be about to break with its tradition; it has joined in the competitive market of reform, endorsing the delegation of power, the code of economic internationalism, the ‘free market economy’ which it once so strenuously opposed. It has presided over the reorganization of county boundaries, and of national currency, over the entry into Europe and the consequent surrender of legal autonomy. Under the impact of New Labour it has opted for a democratic second chamber, and is, at the time of writing, fighting to survive in the face of a conversion of its old elite to the idea of a Single European Currency, notwithstanding the resulting loss of national sovereignty. It allowed during its recent eighteen years in office, the continued subjection of educational, social and legal institutions to the egalitarian ideology associated with socialist planning. In short, the Conservative Party has often acted in a way with which a conservative may find little sympathy. Most of all, it has begun to see itself as the defender of individual freedom against the encroachments of the state, concerned to return to the people their natural right of choice, and to inject into every corporate body the healing principle of democracy. These are passing fashions, well-meant, not always misguided, but by no means the ineluctable expression of the conservative point of view. Rather, they are the outcome of the party’s recent attempt to provide itself with a set of policies and aims, and with the sketch of a political vision from which to derive them. Some have conceived this attempt as politically necessary. Others have wanted it for its own sake. The result has been, either transitory and unmeaning urges to reform, or else the wholesale adoption of the philosophy which I shall characterize in this book as the principal enemy of conservatism, the philosophy of liberalism, with all its attendant trappings of individual autonomy and the natural rights of man. In politics, the conservative attitude seeks above all for government, and regards no citizen as possessed of a natural right that transcends his obligation to be ruled. For what use is a right, without the law-abiding and law-enforcing power that upholds it?

Freedom and moderation

Now it is a sign of troubled times – those times when, as I have said, conservatism must feel the need to articulate itself – that advocates of ‘moderation’, of the sensible ‘middle course’ between extremes, of the demands of a reasonable (because silent) majority, should be listened to with a respect which they could not normally command. The attraction of ‘moderation’ to the Conservative Party has been its supposed association with the ‘free’ or ‘open’ society. And it is this free society that socialism is thought to destroy.³ Hence ‘moderation’ tries to command the defence against ‘Totalitarianism, whether (it is usually added) of the Left or of the Right’. During the years of Margaret Thatcher’s governments, we were encouraged to see national politics, and indeed international politics, in terms of some wholly abstract conflict between ‘Freedom’ and ‘Totalitarianism’, between the ‘natural’ rights to speak and act one’s mind, and an enforced, uneasy slavery.

Properly stated, this distinction need not be naive, and indeed, has the backing of a whole tradition in political philosophy, reaching from Locke to Robert Nozick.⁴ Moreover, it represents an essential part, both of the rhetoric of American government and of the self-image of American society, so that political decisions of the highest seriousness are made in its name. This does not show, however, that the distinction can be put forward as though its clarity were immediate, as though it located definite political allegiances which could be defined in advance of the particular occasion for their declaration, or as though the whole of politics could be subsumed under the two disputing factions to which it gives a name. If it is not strange to find so many soi-disant conservatives identifying their position with this abstraction called ‘Freedom’, this is only because it is of the nature of conservatism to avoid abstractions, and to make radical mistakes when tempted by intelligent opposition to make use of them. Thus the concept of freedom – and in particular, such constitutionally derived freedoms as the freedoms of speech, assembly, and ‘conscience’ – this concept has until recently been the only one that has been presented by contemporary Conservatism as a contribution to the ideological battle which it has assumed to be raging. While freedom meant ‘freedom from communist oppression’ conservatives could advocate freedom and know that they were more or less in line with what they had always believed. But with the collapse of the Soviet Empire and the emergence of a left–liberal consensus, the old battle-cry does nothing to distinguish conservatism from its